2019 Catalogue Archive

Fantastical and strange, Russian-born Sanya Kantarovsky’s works merge fiction with reality to create worlds that appear as fairy tales, allegories, or fancies of the imagination, almost always filtered through the artist’s dark wit. In Jersey Girl, a woman stretches out in a feline pose while her cat licks itself. Outside, fire and smoke billow from the skyline in contrast to the languid scene inside. Kantarovsky depicts the open windows, suggesting a setting where notions of public and private (or loud/quiet, tragic/banal, etc.) constantly overlap. Kantarovsky has exhibited throughout Europe and the US. His work is included in the collections of Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; ICA Boston; LACMA, Los Angeles; the Tate, London; and the Whitney Museum, New York.